Ubuntu: no notification about new distribution releases

With the recent release of Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet I was wondering, why my Ubuntu system does not notify me about the new distribution release. After checking this and that, I remembered turning off notifications for any new versions except new LTS versions. Half a year ago I decided to skip 14.10 and got annoyed by the regular update notifications.

How to enable notifications about any new Ubuntu version

Start Ubuntu’s update-manager, for example from a terminal

update-manager

Wait until it downloaded the current package lists and you get presented with a dialog that has a Settings … button. Click on that button, change to the Updates tab and select at the very bottom For any new version as selection for Notify me of a new Ubuntu version. Click on close and quit the update manager.

Restarting the udpate-manager with the -c flag

update-manager -c

will make it check for new distribution upgrades. Finally, you get presented with a dialog that lets you Upgrade … to the next release.